The way we view websites has changed

In the last few years there has been a minor revolution in the way that we view websites i.e. the introduction of smartphones, ipads and tablets. Websites were then primarily viewed via desktops and laptops, using a mouse or a trackpad. Today’s new devices are touch screen and, so, in order to be user friendly, websites need to be designed in such a way that they are easy to navigate, using just a thumb or finger. With the release of Iphone 6 and the new Galaxy Note 4, you can see that bigger mobile phone devices are on their way - they are almost becoming a cross between phones and tablets – and are being nicknamed ‘phablets’. So, viewing websites via a mobile phone is fast becoming the major platform for accessing the web and is predicted to take over desktop internet usage this year. Some sites recognise this by currently having a separate “mobile” version of their site but increasingly, new sites are designed so that they will be mobile friendly automatically whatever device they are viewed in and whatever browser is being used.

Joomla 3 was released in December 2014.

It is mobile ready, user friendly and most importantly the latest Joomla 3 templates have a “bootstrap” format - i.e you can view them on your mobiles and tablets.

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS or JS framework for developing responsive, mobile-first websites. Using these new Joomla 3 templates we can build sites that have:

A single column layout. These use the entire width of the screen, and avoid the user having to pan back and forth or zoom in. The content expands down the page- because users intuitively scroll down on a touch screen device. Buttons or targets for clicking around the site which are big enough to be clicked on with a fingertip e.g they are easily selectable (around 45-57 pixels in size).

Less clutter. As the websites are viewed on smaller devices the designs have to be simpler and the text content reduced. The user should scroll down to pages that contain easy to consume bites of information.

A better rating by search engines. The SEO (search engine optimisation) of your site will improve and Google now prefer responsive designs when scoring websites.

We can upgrade your site to Joomla 3.0 and fit a new mobile-ready template for it – from just £999